Words More Telling than Deeds

We made the painful mistake of ignoring what the Palestinian Authority says once. Let us not make the same mistake again.

"Planting fear among the enemy is the exalted and holy meaning of terror." This glorification of Palestinian terrorism by former minister Imad Faluji appeared in Al-Hayat al-Jadida, the official Palestinian Authority daily on June 9, just days after the Aqaba summit.

Faluji went on to explain that suicide bombings are justified. "We are not terrorists, if the meaning is unjustified killing..." therefore, every murder of Israelis is legitimate: "We do not regret what we have done "

The pattern developing in the Palestinian media since the road map is strikingly similar to the pattern that evolved under the Oslo process.

During the years 1993-2000, when the PA was not actively involved in terror and, in English, was expressing the desire for peace, its leaders indoctrinated their people with horrific hatred of Jews and Israel.

The Oslo process demonstrated that both the PA's refraining from violence and its English-language peace promotion are valueless as indicators of PA ideology and intentions.

What the Palestinians have been saying to their people in Arabic, however, has proven a most accurate indicator of PA ideology and behavior, with impeccable predictive value.

As early as 1996 Nabil Shaath openly laid out the terms of this violent conflict when he said in Arabic that the PA would return to more effective violence "using the 30,000 rifles" they received as part of the Oslo Accords.

Today it is essential that Israel judge the Palestinians' compliance based on the only proven reliable indicator: their Arabic language media and education.

Significantly, the PA incitement to hatred has finally been officially recognized as an integral part of the problem. At Aqaba all three leaders expressed the necessity of ending incitement, with President George Bush saying, "Progress toward peace also requires an end to violence and the elimination of all forms of hatred and prejudice and official incitement."

Sharon worded it thus: "There can be no peace, however, without the abandonment and elimination of terrorism, violence, and incitement."

Even Abbas said, "We will also act vigorously against incitement to violence and hatred."

However, in practice, as Faluji's glorification of terror indicates, the incitement pattern is continuing under the road map. In his article Faluji went so far as to say that the Palestinians' success in "planting fear among the enemy" via their "holy terror" was not merely important politically but was a fulfillment of Allah's directive in the Koran "to frighten the enemies of Allah, and your enemies."

Defining Israel as the enemy of Allah is not just a nasty slur. It is a continuation of the dangerous PA anti-Semitism that has consistently stigmatized the Jews as the inherently evil enemies of God and therefore worthy of destruction. This definition, which caused Jews appalling suffering for thousands of years, transforms the killing of Jews from an immoral act into a religious obligation; it has been a consistent component of Palestinian incitement to murder.

The PA has been using them to indoctrinate children to hatred, violence, and even the desire to die fighting Israel.

One of the most dangerous aspects of PA education has been the brainwashing of Palestinian children, which continues daily through a most insidious means: music videos.

While music videos around the world are used to entertain children, the PA has been using them to indoctrinate children to hatred, violence, and even the desire to die fighting Israel. Their literal message is that even for kids "Shahada (death for Allah) is sweet."

A new Palestinian video clip that has been broadcast regularly since January, and especially since Aqaba, includes a variety of abhorrent scenes acted out by Palestinian actors.

It opens with a girl laughing on a swing, which turns into a flaming inferno, which then engulfs a child's rocking horse as well. The message: Israelis firebomb children at play, leaving behind flaming swings and rocking horses.

Children are then shown playing football, until a bomb hidden by Israel inside the ball explodes when a child kicks it. Then a father reads his young son a section from the Koran that calls for fighting enemies, and actually hands him a stone to throw. Actors then depict Israeli soldiers murdering an elderly man by shooting him in the head; this is followed by a mother and her infant being blown up by Israeli soldiers.

All this and much more are depicted on one video, set to music for Palestinian children.

Even when an opinion appears in the media calling for an immediate halt to terrorism it never rejects terrorism as a legitimate tool. Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala), a man seen by Israel as a legitimate, even moderate, PA leader, explained his call to stop suicide terrorism as a way of reaping the fruits of what he sees as a successful campaign:

"I personally am in favor of stopping these actions [suicide bombings] and in favor of letting the peace process return to its natural course because I believe the present intifada has brought great achievements and we now have to take the benefits" (Al-Hayat al-Jadida, June 1, 2003).

The Friday sermon, for years a source of horrific incitement to hatred of Jews, continued with the same hate messages this past week: "Allah, take revenge against our enemies Take [destroy] the Jews and their helpers..." One sermon glorified the shahada (used by the PA to define suicide terrorism) and included a lengthy call specifically to mothers to send their sons to die for Allah:

"Alkhansaa [a woman who converted to Islam at the time of Muhammad] gave her four sons encouraged them to go out to jihad, to fight the enemy, and told them: 'Go to battle so that God will honor me by you...' Alkhansaa got news of their death as shahids [martyrs] and said 'Praise to the Lord, who honored me with their being killed'

"By means of belief, the Palestinian nation succeeded in fighting this oppressive military mechanism for over 50 years The women of Palestine have succeeded in making the enemy anxious when news is received of the death as a Shahid of a mother's son, and she expresses the shrill sounds of joy " [PA TV June 13, 2002].
The continued glorification of the shahada gives ongoing reassurance to hesitant suicide bombers that their planned murder-suicide is worthy and heroic.

One of the primary reasons for the tragic results of the Oslo process was Israel's refusal to believe the Palestinian Authority's beliefs and goals even when they were stated openly. It was difficult for Israeli leaders and media to fathom that while we were educating our children to peace the PA was teaching children in their summer camps to shoot rifles, slit throats, and throw Jews into the sea.

Every outrageous PA statement that didn't fit into Israel's neat worldview of the PA was justified, explained, rationalized, and ultimately dismissed. More than once Israel's lame political response was turned into ideology by Shimon Peres: "I don't care what the PA says. I care what it does."

Now we know that Peres had it backwards. What the PA "does" is often tactical like the hudna (cease-fire) being debated today. But what it says in Arabic it truly means.

Today, in Arabic, it does not yet recognize Israel as a Jewish state and continues to incite hatred, violence, and shahada even as it tries to arrange a cease-fire to "take the benefits" of the successful war that has planted "fear" in the hearts of Israelis.

We made the painful mistake of ignoring what the PA says once. Let us not make the same mistake again.

Visitor Comments: 1

(1)
Char,
June 22, 2003 12:00 AM

Let's not make the same mistake twice

We need to put our trust in HaShem, not in man. An agreement is just a piece of paper. Without sincerity and commitment from everyone, it means nothing. There will be no peace until HaShem intervenes for us. Remember the parting of the Red Sea, along with so many other interventions which led to the Exodus from Egypt. It will take the L-rd our G-d to set matters straight. To believe in a piece of paper to usher in peace and security is to risk a greater Holocaust than we have ever known. The Palestinian/Arab countries will have no rest until we are no more. The admonitions of the prophets I believe, not the words of the Palestinian/Arab people.

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I'm told that it's a mitzvah to become intoxicated on Purim. This puzzles me, because to my understanding, it is not considered a good thing to become intoxicated, period.

One of the characteristics of the at-risk youth is their use of drugs, including alcohol. In my experience, getting drunk doesn't reveal secrets. It makes people act stupid and irresponsible, doing things they would never do if they were sober. Also, I know a lot about the horrible health effects of abusing alcohol, because I work at a research center that focuses on addiction and substance abuse.

Also, I am an alcoholic, which means that if I drink, very bad things happen. I have not had a drink in 22 years, and I have no intention of starting now. Surely there must be instances where a person is excused from the obligation to drink. I don't see how Judaism could ever promote the idea of getting drunk. It just doesn't seem right.

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Putting aside for a moment all the spiritual and philosophical reasons for getting drunk on Purim, this remains an issue of common sense. Of course, teenagers should be warned of the dangers of acute alcohol ingestion. Of course, nobody should drink and drive. Of course, nobody should become so drunk to the point of negligence in performing mitzvot. And of course, a recovering alcoholic should not partake of alcohol on Purim.

Indeed, the Code of Jewish Law explicitly says that if one suspects the drinking may affect him negatively, then he should NOT drink.

Getting drunk on Purim is actually one of the most difficult mitzvot to do correctly. A person should only drink if it will lead to positive spiritual results - e.g. under the loosening affect of the alcohol, greater awareness will surface of the love for God and Torah found deep in the heart. (Perhaps if we were on a higher spiritual level, we wouldn't need to get drunk!)

Yet the Talmud still speaks of an obligation on Purim of "not knowing the difference between Blessed is Mordechai and Cursed is Haman." How then should a person who doesn't drink get the point of “not knowing”? Simple - just go to sleep! (Rama - OC 695:2)

All this applies to individuals. But the question remains - does drinking on Purim adversely affect the collective social health of the Jewish community?

The aversion to alcoholism is engrained into Jewish consciousness from a number of Biblical and Talmudic sources. There are the rebuking words of prophets - Isaiah 28:1, Hosea 3:1 with Rashi, and Amos 6:6, and the Zohar says that "The wicked stray after wine" (Midrash Ne'alam Parshat Vayera).

It is well known that the rate of alcoholism among Jews has historically been very low. Numerous medical, psychological and sociological studies have confirmed this. The connection between Judaism and sobriety is so evident, that the following conversation is reported by Lawrence Kelemen in "Permission to Receive":

When Dr. Mark Keller, editor of the Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, commented that "practically all Jews do drink, and yet all the world knows that Jews hardly ever become alcoholics," his colleague, Dr. Howard Haggard, director of Yale's Laboratory of Applied Physiology, jokingly proposed converting alcoholics to the Jewish religion in order to immerse them in a culture with healthy attitudes toward drinking!

Perhaps we could suggest that it is precisely because of the use of alcohol in traditional ceremonies (Kiddush, Bris, Purim, etc.), that Jews experience such low rates of alcoholism. This ceremonial usage may actually act like an inoculation - i.e. injecting a safe amount that keeps the disease away.

Of course, as we said earlier, all this needs to be monitored with good common sense. Yet in my personal experience - having been in the company of Torah scholars who were totally drunk on Purim - they acted with extreme gentleness and joy. Amid the Jewish songs and beautiful words of Torah, every year the event is, for me, very special.

Adar 12 marks the dedication of Herod's renovations on the second Holy Temple in Jerusalem in 11 BCE. Herod was king of Judea in the first century BCE who constructed grand projects like the fortresses at Masada and Herodium, the city of Caesarea, and fortifications around the old city of Jerusalem. The most ambitious of Herod's projects was the re-building of the Temple, which was in disrepair after standing over 300 years. Herod's renovations included a huge man-made platform that remains today the largest man-made platform in the world. It took 10,000 men 10 years just to build the retaining walls around the Temple Mount; the Western Wall that we know today is part of that retaining wall. The Temple itself was a phenomenal site, covered in gold and marble. As the Talmud says, "He who has not seen Herod's building, has never in his life seen a truly grand building."

Some people gauge the value of themselves by what they own. But in reality, the entire concept of ownership of possessions is based on an illusion. When you obtain a material object, it does not become part of you. Ownership is merely your right to use specific objects whenever you wish.

How unfortunate is the person who has an ambition to cleave to something impossible to cleave to! Such a person will not obtain what he desires and will experience suffering.

Fortunate is the person whose ambition it is to acquire personal growth that is independent of external factors. Such a person will lead a happy and rewarding life.

With exercising patience you could have saved yourself 400 zuzim (Berachos 20a).

This Talmudic proverb arose from a case where someone was fined 400 zuzim because he acted in undue haste and insulted some one.

I was once pulling into a parking lot. Since I was a bit late for an important appointment, I was terribly annoyed that the lead car in the procession was creeping at a snail's pace. The driver immediately in front of me was showing his impatience by sounding his horn. In my aggravation, I wanted to join him, but I saw no real purpose in adding to the cacophony.

When the lead driver finally pulled into a parking space, I saw a wheelchair symbol on his rear license plate. He was handicapped and was obviously in need of the nearest parking space. I felt bad that I had harbored such hostile feelings about him, but was gratified that I had not sounded my horn, because then I would really have felt guilty for my lack of consideration.

This incident has helped me to delay my reactions to other frustrating situations until I have more time to evaluate all the circumstances. My motives do not stem from lofty principles, but from my desire to avoid having to feel guilt and remorse for having been foolish or inconsiderate.

Today I shall...

try to withhold impulsive reaction, bearing in mind that a hasty act performed without full knowledge of all the circumstances may cause me much distress.

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